One Major Award Trending in Vikings’ Favor
The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Chicago Bears by 18 points on Monday Night Football, knocking off the rival for the seventh time in the last eight attempts.
One Major Award Trending in Vikings’ Favor
The day prior, the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers lost their respective matchups, which incidentally swung the NFL’s Coach of the Year race in Kevin O’Connell’s favor.
O’Connell is now the frontrunner to win Coach of the Year.
Here’s the skinny:
NFL Coach of the Year Odds,
thru Week 15:
Kevin O’Connell = +110
Dan Campbell = +250
Sean Payton = +350
Dan Quinn = +550
Mike Tomlin = +1200
So, what happened? Well, the Vikings have won seven straight games. The franchise unexpectedly started the season a with 5-0 record, a mark tallied against gangbusters opponents — at least at the time — that included dubs over the San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans, and on the road at the Green Bay Packers.
The bye arrived in Week 6, and thereafter, Minnesota dropped two consecutive meetings to the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams, creating fears that that 5-0 start was fool’s gold.
But that was false.
The Vikings have responded with seven straight triumphs, the most recent against a hated foe, the Chicago Bears, on Monday Night Football. And when Campbell and Tomlin, who flirted with Top 3 COTY odds amid the last month, lost on Sunday, well, O’Connell’s candidacy looked pretty spiffy heading into Week 16.
Minnesota “controls its own destiny” henceforth. If it wins the next three games versus the Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers, and Detroit Lions, O’Connell’s group will hold homefield advantage throughout the postseason, which it has not featured in 26 years.
Pro Football Talk‘s Mike Florio, too, seems to believe O’Connell will take home the COTY hardware.
“In only three seasons, he has already matched Bud Grant as the only coach in franchise history with multiple 12-win seasons. (Grant had four.) With one more victory, O’Connell will be the team’s first coach with a pair of 13-win seasons. O’Connell also has a shot at the Vikings’ first 15-win season since 1998, the magical Randy Moss rookie year,” Florio wrote after the Vikings’ Week 15 win. “Since Bud Grant retired after the 1985 season (he came back for a year after his first retirement resulted in a 3-13 Les Steckel debacle), the Vikings have been looking for another Bud Grant.”
He added, “In O’Connell, they have him.”
O’Connell is winning — at a 12-2 clip — with a quarterback most thought was a bust. That may be enough to take home the trophy.
He could bring the award home to Minnesota for the first time in 55 years. Grant was last to win it for the purple team.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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